4 months later
December 23rd
Claudia Donovan-Fargo stood with her husband at the airport gates, waiting for a small flight from South Dakota.
"Why don't you sit down, Claudia?" Fargo asked her for the hundredth time, making the redhead roll her eyes, as she rubbed her protruding stomach absentmindedly.
"I'll be fine, Dougie." She told him. "Besides, they should be here any minute."
Just then, her face lit up.
"Jinksy!" she cried. "Myka! Pete! Artie! Abigail!" she continued, waving frantically. Steve was, of course, the first to hear her, and he hurried over to the young couple, leading the rest of the Warehouse family over. There was a minute or two of hellos, before….
"Ohmigod, H.G.!" Claudia cried, enveloping a tall, raven-haired woman in a hug.
"Hello, Claudia." The woman said happily, with a thick British accent, before pulling away. "It certainly has been awhile."
"Yeah it has!" Claudia laughed, before noticing her awkward-looking husband standing next to her.
"Sorry, Dougie." Claudia said, giving her husband a peck on the cheek. "I forgot that you two haven't met yet. Doug, this is H.G. Wells. H.G., this is my husband, Douglas Fargo."
"Pleasure." Helena said, holding her hand out to the young scientist. "You may call me Helena or H.G., whichever you prefer."
"Oh, like the Britsh writer, H.G. Wells? The father of science fiction?" Fargo asked, making Helena smile.
"Yes, just like that." She said, with a twinkle in her eyes, and causing the rest of the Warehouse agents to either chuckle or just laugh outright.
"What's so funny?" Fargo asked.
"You haven't told him, have you, darling?" Helena asked Claudia, laughing quietly when the younger woman shook her head.
"He's a huge fan of yours, H.G. I thought it would make a great early Christmas present."
"What would?" Fargo asked, growing frustrated. He hated being kept out of the loop.
"I'll tell you when we get home, sweetie." She said, before allowing Artie and Fargo to shepherd her through the airport.
-Have you recently smelled a line break when in fact there is no line break?-
10 minutes later, the group of 8 was pulling up outside of Claudia and Fargo's house.
"Claud! I'm surprised with you!" Pete exclaimed. "You haven't gone all out with the decorations!"
That one made Claudia, Artie, Myka, and Pete all burst out laughing at the memory of their first Christmas at the Warehouse together.
"Well, I didn't get any mistletoe, but as for the rest of it – " Claudia stopped talking and smirked, as they walked towards the front door. "Watch this."
She clapped twice, and Christmas lights lit up all over the eaves of the house, and covering the bushes, making the house look like something off of a Christmas card.
"I stand corrected." Pete said, making the rest of them laugh.
Within the hour, all of them were settled in their rooms and unpacked. Fargo & Claudia, of course, were in the master bedroom, Pete & Steve were sharing the second bedroom – each room had 2 double beds – Myka & H.G. were sharing the 3rd, and Artie had the fourth. Abigail would sleep on the pullout bed in the living room.
Then they all convened back downstairs, to decorate the tree together, and just catch up.
"Oh, Claudia," Helena said, as she helped Pete put the lights on the tree, "Would you like to tell him, or shall I?"
The younger woman laughed. "I'll tell him, just someone needs to be ready to catch him." She said, before turning to her husband.
"First of all, Doug, you have to swear to never reveal this information to anyone. If anyone asks, H.G. is Helena Wells, an old friend of mine, alright?"
Fargo agreed, although he was becoming confused.
"All right then." Claudia said, excited to see how her husband would react to this information.
"Doug, I would like you to meet H.G. Wells, the father – mother – of science fiction, inventor extrordinaire, and agent of both Warehouses 12 and 13."
"Don't forget Miss Fancy-Shmancy-Kick-Ass and Lady Cuckoo!" Pete added, earning a punch from Myka.
"Actually," Helena said, smiling widely, "It will soon be Helena George Bering-Wells." She said, and everyone turned to look at Myka, who blushed. Sure enough, there was a large diamond glittering on her left ring finger.
Everything was completely silent for a moment, until Abigail spoke up.
"Well now I'm glad that I'm not sharing a room with you two." She said dryly, effectively breaking the spell that the announcement had cast over the family.
Everyone was soon trading hugs and congratulating the couple, especially Artie. He hadn't trusted H.G. for a long time, not until the astrolabe incident, but nowadays they got along fine.
Once they had all settled back down, H.G. looked at Fargo in surprise.
"Dr. Fargo?" she asked, staring at the man. He was frozen in the same position he was in when Claudia had told him the truth about H.G. "Dr. Fargo, are you all right?"
"Doug?" Claudia asked her husband worriedly. "You okay?"
He nodded slowly, before saying weakly, "I've spent my entire life thinking what a brilliant man you were, and now I find out that you're alive…. And a woman."
"Well, at least you got the brilliant part right." Myka said, wrapping an arm around her lover, that quietly happy radiance that she got causing her to practically glow.
"But… how?" Fargo spluttered out, making Claudia grin.
"That, my dear doctor, is a very long story." Helena said as they all sat down to begin the tale.
"Okay, so this whole thing started…. Four years ago?" Claudia asked, and the older Warehouse agents nodded in agreement. "Before I knew you, Doug, before any of us knew Steve – actually, H.G. is the reason that Steve first came to the Warehouse…"